


Tools of the Trade

by Addleton



Series: Your Yellow Stripe Has Always Tempted Me [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Antagonism, Canon Compliant, M/M, Pre-Slash, Slow Build, sargington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7345042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Addleton/pseuds/Addleton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renovating Red Base would be a lot easier with the proper tools. Fortunately, Agent Washington is willing to share. To a point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tools of the Trade

**Author's Note:**

> [I worship Min's GDoc script.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/19eZnBQ4989Dr17v2ODFgE8QWAo9Oahi4USDNS3hOSvM/edit) No more nasty extra spaces around my italics!
> 
> *rejoices*

Agent Washington was patrolling the canyon, a keen eye out for potential hostiles (unlikely considering the uninhabited state of the surrounding jungle), rescue efforts (also unlikely without a working line of communication), and signs of fire (unfortunately all-too likely where a Caboose missing his friend was concerned) when he heard a crash nearby followed by a familiar voice yelping in pain. The yelp seamlessly devolved into a curse storm even the hardiest of sailors would be hard pressed to match, and the Ex-Freelancer rounded an outcropping to find a pair of red-armored legs jutting out from beneath the front fender of a wheel-less Spade.

Wash hurried over to the side of the vehicle, kneeling down to get a better look at the trapped man’s position. “Sarge, are you okay?”

The Red leader attempted to push up on the undercarriage, but the lack of space between the bottom of the vehicle and the ground rendered it impossible for his arms to get enough leverage to lift the car. He grunted with frustration and useless exertion before biting out, “What does it look like to you?!”

Wash stood up and walked around the vehicle, trying to determine the best way to lever it off of Sarge’s thighs. Two blocks of wood sat crookedly near the rear tires, pushed out of position by the Spade’s weight. “It looks to me like you didn't properly stop the rear wheels when you jacked up the front.”

Sarge grumbled about smartass Blues and wiggled his feet angrily, unable to move anything else below his hips, as he continued trying to lift the Spade with his hampered upper body strength.

Wash knelt back down beside the car and leaned his helmet down into Sarge's limited line of sight. “Are you injured?”

“No,” Sarge grunted, as if the mere thought of being injured by a vehicle were offensive. “Just stuck beneath this confounded contraption that doesn't have the decency to be a proper car.”

Wash hid his relief behind a smug smile, knowing just how much the Red leader hated asking anyone for anything. “Would you like some help with that?”

“Well golly-gee-willikers! I just _love_ being pinned to the ground by several tons of mechanical mishap!”

Wash shrugged, keeping his tone nonchalant as he replied, “If that's how you really feel about it, I guess there's no need for me to jack that vehicle off of you.”

There was a moment of absolute silence as Sarge stopped his fidgeting attempts to free himself.

“Did you just offer to jack off this here vehicle?”

“Yes.” What was Sarge getting a— “Wait! No! Not _like that!_ ” Wash would kick himself for the unfortunate phrasing if he weren't still kneeling next to the Spade. He _knew_ what was coming next, especially with how gleefully Sarge was cackling.

“You know what I meant!” The Ex-Freelancer stood up and backed away so that Sarge could see more of him than just his feet. Wash crossed his arms over his chest, helmet tilted to convey exasperation. “It's not _that_ funny.”

The red-armored sergeant howled with laughter.

“If you don't stop laughing, I'm leaving you like that.”

Sarge blew a loud raspberry. “Don't be such a Blue-footed booby, Washington,” he said in between snorts. “It could've been worse. Donut could've heard you.” Sarge went quiet again, a sly edge to his tone as he added, “He still might.”

“You wouldn't.”

Sarge's feet twitched like a pair of self-satisfied cat tails.

“Who am I kidding. Of course you would.” The stubborn man just couldn't accept help without making a show of negotiations and comeuppances. No. That would be too _easy_.

“Heh heh heh.” Sarge’s feet wiggled with each chuckle. “Fortunately for you, I'd be willing to keep quiet in exchange for a favor of equal magnitude. What do you say, Washington? Care to assist me with this complicationary conveyance I find myself under?” The Red leader tapped the bottom of the closest door in punctuation.

Wash sighed. “Where's your jack?”

“...Didn't use one.”

“Didn't— Why not?!” Wash swore, if it was because of some macho—

“Don't have one.”

That... was not a response Wash was expecting. “Don't— Then how did you lift the front?!”

“You'd be surprised how much you can accomplish with just some good, old-fashioned leverage and sheer determination!” If Sarge could move more than just his arms and feet, Wash would bet good money that the man would have been striking a dramatic pose as he said that.

“I... You...” Wash just shook his head as he figured out the best response to that. “Just... wait here.”

Sarge snorted. “Not like I've got anywhere else to go.”

Wash ignored the sarcasm as he dashed off to get the jack from his vehicle maintenance toolbox. The yellow-striped soldier returned a few minutes later and set to work lifting the front of the Spade up enough for Sarge to move his legs freely (with a barely-audible sigh of relief).

“Next time you don't have the tools to do the job safely, just ask,” Wash said as he hauled the Red leader to his feet once the man had wriggled clear of the front bumper. “If I have the tool, I'll let you use it.”

“Hah!” Sarge sniffed disdainfully as he wiped stray blades of grass from between the plates of his armor. “Safety is for pansies and other delicate blooms!”

“And for people who need to stay alive.”

Sarge huffed, then tilted his helmet, his rear now relatively grass-free. “So I just need to ask for a tool and you'll just let me borrow it?”

“If I have it.”

“Simple as that?”

“Yes.”

“No hidden fees or undisclosed charges?”

“None.”

Sarge hemmed to himself before gruffly asking, “You got a spanner?”

“What size?”

“Eh, I'm not picky. Ratchet?”

“Several, and most of the spanners have a ratchet end.”

“Fancy. How about a whatchamadoohickey?”

“I have no idea what that is.”

“It's like a pocket knife, only with a lot less stabbity and a lot more hexagon. Real handy for putting together that cheap Swedish furniture Simmons always buys.”

Wash thought about it. “An Allen key?”

“No!” Sarge threw his hands up in the air. “A whatchamadoohickey!”

Wash sighed. Not a lot of tools were hexagon-shaped _and_ came in fold-out form, so he was most likely correct regardless of what Sarge called it. “I think I have one.”

“Tell you what, Washington,” Sarge said, that sly tone returning as he struck a more confident stance. “Since there's clearly a divergence in terminology here, how about you just let me borrow your entire toolbox.”

Wash just _looked._ When his Red counterpart didn’t say or do anything else in explication, the Ex-Freelancer sighed and said, “Not that I mind, but don't you have your own?”

“Lost it in the crash.”

Another thing to add to the list of “Useful Things We Lost in the Crash”. “I see…” Wash said, tilting his head skeptically, “but what do you need that many tools for?”

“Oh, you know.” Sarge waved a hand dismissively, as if the answers were glaringly obvious. “Maintaining Lopez. Upgrading vehicles into proper cars. Remodeling Red Base. Speaking of which, I'll need to borrow that tank of yours too.”

Wash crossed his arms over his chest, already not liking what the Red leader was up to, even if he wasn’t sure what it was yet. “What for?”

“I just said!” Sarge huffed with exaggerated disbelief (though when was anything _not_ exaggerated with him). “Remodeling Red Base!”

Wash scoffed back. “No.”

“No?! But you just said that if you had the tool, you'd let me borrow it!”

“First off—” Wash held up a finger as a visual aid. “—how do you even remodel with a tank?! Second, the tank is not a tool. It is a _weapon._ ”

“And that's where you're wrong!” Sarge was suddenly in Wash’s personal space, red finger pushing resolutely into cobalt chestplate, directly over Wash’s heart. “Weapons are simply tools specialized for killing.” Each word was punctuated with a corresponding jab of the finger, with the last jab a particularly strong one.

Wash pushed Sarge’s hand away and put some space between them as he counter-replied, “Which is precisely why you can't use one to remodel Red Base! Knowing you, you'd just use it to try to kill Grif.”

“Nonsense!” Sarge crossed his arms with a huff. “The primary objective here is remodeling, though I won't deny that Grif also dying when the base collapses under heavy artillery is an ideal outcome of the plan.”

“No.”

“Oh come on, Washington!” Sarge stepped closer in as non-threatening a manner as a chronically-over-aggressive military man could, which is to say, in a completely threatening-while-meaning-the-opposite manner. “I promise I'll return her in better shape than when I borrowed her.”

Wash stood his ground. “Still no.”

The Red leader groused loudly, coming to a stop within elbow-distance of his counterpart. “What possible reason could you have for saying ‘no’ to blowing up Red Base?!” he asked, hands flung wide with exasperation.

Well, if Sarge was going to be difficult with him, Wash felt no qualms about being difficult right back. “For starters?” Wash began, dry amusement in his tone. “It would make the teams uneven—”

“In your favor!”

“—waste ammunition—”

“Killing Grif is never a waste of ammunition!”

“—potentially attract unwanted attention—”

“I could use more variety in targets!”

“—and possibly set the canyon on fire.”

Sarge looked at Wash, the glint of sunlight off his visor conveying just how unimpressed the Red leader was with that reason. “Don’t need a tank for that.” The red-armored man huffed. “A Caboose is plenty enough for that job.”

The man had a point, but… “The answer is still no.”

Sarge grumbled about Blues reneging on their words.

Wash sighed and rolled his eyes, somehow finding the patience to still be reasonable (probably because if _he_ wasn’t, _no one_ would be). “You don’t have to live on the opposite side of the canyon, you know. We could always add more rooms to Blue Base.”

“And admit the structural inferiority of Red Base in the process?!” Sarge backed away as if Wash had pulled a weapon on him and howled, “Never! Just because you Blues aren’t above using some of that newfangled technology to carve your base out of living rock doesn’t mean that Red Base won’t be even more spectacular when complete! It’ll just take more time to get there.”

It was Wash’s turn to look completely unimpressed. “Laser cutters have been around for centuries, Sarge.”

“But have they been around for _millennia?_ ” Sarge nodded to himself, knowing that Wash couldn’t dispute that point. “Building a base from scratch is a labor of love! Not some competition to be rushed through. It isn’t often you get to design your quarters from the ground up. Literally.”

Wash sighed and shook his head, turning to walk away. “Whatever you say, Sarge. I’m heading back to base.”

“What! Running away already?” Sarge almost sounded disappointed. “We haven’t even gotten to the fun part: the actual fighting!” Definitely disappointed.

Wash shook his head again, pausing to look over his shoulder. “If you’re going to be borrowing my _entire_ toolbox, I’ll need to pick out the tools for the Comm Tower so I’m not running over to Red Base every other minute.”

Sarge looked a bit put out.

“I expect you to take proper care of all of them.”

The red soldier muttered darkly to himself before asking, “And if I don’t?”

“Do you really want to find out?”

“Only if you demonstrate on Grif!” Sarge replied all-too cheerfully.

Wash rolled his eyes, shook his head once more, and began walking back to Blue Base. “Goodbye, Sarge.”

“Or I could come with you. Speed up the borrowing process,” the Red leader said, jogging up beside Wash and matching his pace. A moment later and under his breath, Sarge added, “Surreptitiously gather intel on your fortifications,” clearly intending for his Blue counterpart to hear.

Wash sighed and refrained from rising to the bait. He was already beginning to regret offering anything to the deliberately difficult man, and he was not in the mood for silly arguments with a trigger-happy sergeant. “You're staying outside the base while I get the tools,” he said firmly, “or you're not coming at all.”

“Or you’ll what? Frown at me from behind that shiny, tinted visor of yours?”

“Shooting you seems like a better idea the longer I’m with you,” Wash growled, not entirely sure how serious he was. Not serious enough to _actually_ shoot the other man, at least.

Sarge just chuckled. “Now that’s the spirit!”

“I wasn’t serious, Sarge.”

“Oh, drat.” Sarge sounded genuinely disappointed. “And here I was thinking you were finally getting into the swing of how we do things around here. I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary ever since that Flowers fellow went and croaked like the slimy, greenish frog he was.”

“We’ve only been here a week, Sarge.”

“And that’s completely irrelevant to the issue at hand! A box canyon is a box canyon, and in a box canyon, suggesting you’ll shoot someone, especially if they’re on the opposite team, is a sacred promise! You don’t just joke about things like that!”

Wash deflected the elbow the other man tried to jab into his side. “I’ll tell you what, Sarge. If I ever get the urge to actually shoot you, I will.”

“Heh heh heh. Looks like I’ll finally get to hear your Declaration of Opening Fire.”

Wash glanced at Sarge, uncertain if he’d heard correctly. “My what?”

“The traditional Declaration of Opening Fire? Where you declare to your enemies that you’re about to open fire upon their good-for-nothing dirtbag behinds?”

“Why would I do that?”

Sarge stopped mid-step, completely aghast. He jogged back up next to Wash a moment later, indignation positively seething off him in waves. “Because it’s traditional! How else are your enemies supposed to be properly prepared to be shot at!”

“They need to prepare for that?” It was more a statement of disbelief than a question.

Sarge looked at Wash askance. “Son,” the red-armored sergeant said at length, “clearly your military education is sorely lacking in the fundamentals.”

“No. I don’t think so. I think yours was just a bit more… thorough.” As in _thoroughly incomprehensible._ Thankfully, they arrived at Blue Base just then. “Wait here.”

“And what’s to prevent me from ignoring you and waltzing right on in? Empty threats of shooting me? You’ll have to do better than that!” Sarge kept walking on a course that would take him straight inside.

“Oh for—! If you set so much as a single _toe_ into Blue Base, I’ll tell Grif that you needed my help to jack off a car.”

Sarge froze, toe hovering just inside the entrance. “You wouldn’t.”

Wash just _looked._

Sarge glared back a while before slowly pulling his foot back and setting it on the ground safely outside of Blue Base, muttering darkly all the while.

“I’ll be just a moment.”

Sarge grunted and leaned against the wall next to the entrance, waving his hand in a “get on with it already” motion.

It didn’t take Wash long to pick out the tools needed for the Comm Tower; he already had a good idea of which ones he’d be using, and most of them were already stored on-site at the tower for the sake of convenience. He was outside of Blue Base in less than ten minutes, toolbox carried with both hands to leave the handle free, and ready to see the back of the red sergeant. Wash handed the metal box to Sarge, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited for the man to leave.

“Are you sure I can’t—”

“No. No tank.”

Sarge’s shoulders slumped and he grumbled about uptight Blues and their lack of appreciation for the finer points of artillery-fueled demolition. With a heavy sigh, the Red leader began his trip back across the canyon, borrowed toolbox swinging despondently from one hand.

Wash watched until the other man went out of sight behind the still-jacked-up Spade, belatedly realizing that Sarge would likely use the tools to build some sort of murder machine just for the fun of it.

With a sigh, Wash headed to the remains of the ship to lock up all the removable and dangerous robot parts he could find. After all, there was no sense in making the construction of a laser-guided deathmachine _easy_ for Sarge.

Especially since Sarge would still find a way to build one. Probably.


End file.
